Posts Tagged ‘food service’

The Ministry of Agriculture’s third advance estimates for the production of horticultural crops in India during 2016-17 has record figures for vegetables and fruit, 176.17 million tons and 93.7 million tons respectively.

The horticultural division counts 22 vegetable classes and a 23rd which includes all others. Likewise 26 classes of fruit and a 27th which includes all other fruit. Unfortunately, the horticultural division does not name these ‘other’ vegetables – which I surmise will include a number of leafy greens, tubers and beans – and which are estimated by the division to have amounted for the year to 23.62 million tons (mt).

In this chart for vegetables the ‘other’ unnamed vegetables are clubbed together with those vegetables whose harvests are individually sizeable (0.2 to 0.7 mt) but under 1 mt: elephant foot yam, mushroom, capsicum and parwal.

What stands out in this record harvest of vegetables is how the total tonnage is distributed. Potato, tomato, onion and brinjal together account for 101.82 mt which is 57% of the total vegetables tonnage. This is an extraordinary concentration. Worse, potato alone is 48.24 mt which is just over 23% of the vegetables total.

This is a hopelessly skewed distribution by weight which I think describes how very far the writ of the snack food manufacturers runs, by governing crop cultivation choices made in the field. Most snacks available today are industrially produced mixtures of vegetable ingredients, with flavours, colourings and food scents chemically added.

So-called contract farming in India began with PepsiCo’s foods division directing the cultivation of potato for its chips. Onions and tomato followed – for the last five years some 2 to 2.5 mt of onions are exported, and tomato makes its way into numerous ketchups and sauces. Both are ‘popular’ snack flavours by themselves. Hence the top three vegetable classes account for nearly 90 million tons together. Compare this quantity with India’s wheat harvest for 2016-17 of 98.38 mt!

To put the total annual quantities of onions (21.72 mt) and tomatoes (19.54) in perspective, 22.95 mt of pulses were grown during 2016-17 and this being not enough to provide our households, a further 6.6 mt was imported during 2016-17 (at a cost of Rs 28,523 crore). This is what irrational crop cultivation choices results in: kisans’ plots are dedicated to the cultivation of a few vegetable staples that serve as raw material for a snack foods industry whose products are nutritionally harmful, whereas those plots could grow pulses and save the country money, besides contributing to balanced diets.

Yet the count of vegetables by the horticulture division of the Ministry of Agriculture does not enumerate even the better-known vegetables that arrive at the mandis, and whose mandi prices are listed by the same ministry.

These 43 classes (there are likely more based on seasons and agro-ecological regions) of commonly consumed vegetables, grown all over India, amount to about 22 mt, using the numbers from the third advance estimates for 2016-17. But it is upon the diversity of these lesser, ‘other’ classes of vegetables that the dietary balance of millions of households depends. Yes, the annual vegetables balance sheet for 2016-17 boasts an impressive bottom-line, but the numbers therein don’t add up.